Scout InsurTech Interview with Kettle

Kettle is an MGA (Managing General Agency). They seek to provide insurance and reinsurance for property owners in areas affected by catastrophic climate events. Chris Luiz sat with CEO, Isaac Espinoza, to learn more about how Kettle is impacting the industry.

Who are your clients?

We sell to commercial property insureds: homeowners associations, condo associations, high net worth homes, golf courses, wineries, churches, and schools. Anyone who needs commercial insurance and is in a wildfire-prone area. Most of our customers are located in California, though we can write business throughout the U.S. with Colorado being our second-largest state.

What does your product do?

Our current products are parametric and focused solely on wildfire coverage. If an insured has an existing policy that excludes wildfire or has limited wildfire coverage, they can buy a wildfire-only product from us to help fill any gaps. If a wildfire has a footprint that enters their property and there’s a loss as a result, the policy triggers, and they can file a claim and receive recovery within days.

How much capital have you raised?

We’ve raised just under $30 million to date across our Seed and Series A rounds.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

The company was born as a combination of both. It was created by three co-founders, two of which came from the insurance/reinsurance industry and one from the tech world. The formation of Kettle was off the back of the major wildfire events that California experienced in 2017 and 2018. The co-founders felt that with the advances in technology and abundance of new data sources available, wildfire modeling can be done in a better way. With 18 of the worst 20 wildfire events happening in the past two decades, severe wildfires have become more frequent and severe. Kettle was formed with the goal of building sophisticated models and providing insurance solutions for this complex (and evolving) peril. 

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months?

Over the last 24 months, we’ve grown our top line by about 20x, and revenues have followed a similar path. In 2022, we wrote under $1 million in premium; by the end of 2024, we closed just under $20 million. We expect continued growth in 2025. Our underwritten insurance business has been profitable from day one, and we plan to grow responsibly and profitably.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing?

The industry is facing a major challenge around the availability of wildfire coverage. As more carriers pull out of wildfire-exposed areas, a protection gap is growing. That’s where we come in. We are actively moving into these areas and providing much-needed coverage.

How does Kettle take a unique approach to providing value?

We operate differently in a number of ways. We use our own in-house wildfire model, built by a team of experts with strong science and engineering backgrounds. We are vertically integrated across our tech, risk, finance and underwriting functions. As an MGA working in the excess and surplus lines market, we have greater flexibility to respond to a rapidly changing environment. We view our ability to be nimble and dynamic as a competitive advantage.

What inspired the team to start this company?

The 2017–2018 wildfires made it clear that wildfire risk was an under-modeled, emerging problem. Our company was set up with the goal of using the most cutting-edge technology to model risk in a changing climate.

Can you share any goals for the next 12 months?

We would like to continue growing this year, while maintaining profitable underwriting performance. We’re looking to expand our capacity partnerships with reinsurers and carriers, and we plan to launch a new commercial property program this summer. We’ll grow our team by a bit, but we intend to stay lean. We are also continuing to build out our presence in Ohio, where several of our team members are based.

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